Purpose Investments, which manages $23 billion in assets, has submitted a preliminary prospectus to Canadian securities regulators, planning to launch the world's first Ripple (XRP) spot ETF. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/01/30/3018133/0/en/Purpose-Investments-Files-Preliminary-Prospectus-for-the-World-s-First-Ripple-XRP-ETF.html

31 Jan Options Data
80,000 BTC options expired with a Put Call Ratio of 0.68, a Maxpain point of $98,000 and a notional value of $8.38 billion.
603,000 ETH options expired with a Put Call Ratio of 0.43, a Maxpain point of $3,300 and a notional value of $1.96 billion.

According to Fortune, Errol Musk, father of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, hopes to raise $150 million to $200 million through a token project called "Musk LT." He said he had no qualms about using his name to make money on the "memecoin," which many potential buyers would associate with his famous son.

Bitfinex Securities plans to issue Blockstream Mining Note 2 (BMN2) in El Salvador in the first quarter of this year. BMN2 is a tokenized financial product that will earn holders returns based on the bitcoin mined by Blockstream's operations. BMN1 paid investors more than 1,212 BTC over a three-year period.

Tether announced the integration of its stablecoin USDt into the Bitcoin ecosystem, including its base layer and Lightning Network. This integration, supported by the new Taproot-driven protocol Taproot Assets and developed by Lightning Labs, aims to combine Bitcoin’s decentralization and security with the speed and scalability of the Lightning Network.

The SEC has approved NYSE Arca’s proposed rule change to list and trade shares of the Bitwise Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF. The ETF will hold spot Bitcoin and Ethereum based on their market capitalization weight. https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nysearca/2025/34-102310.pdf

According to Bloomberg, the parents of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried are seeking a pardon for their son from President Trump. It is reported that Stanford Law School professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried recently held meetings with lawyers and other figures in Trump’s orbit to discuss seeking leniency for their 32-year-old son, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has submitted a 19b-4 form, applying to list and trade the Grayscale XRP Trust, which means it will be upgraded or converted into an exchange-traded fund (ETF). https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/nyse/markets/nyse-arca/rule-filings/filings/2025/SR-NYSEArca-2025-08.pdf

ECB president Christine Lagarde affirmed on Thursday that bitcoin would not be included in the eurozone’s central bank reserves, citing liquidity, security and regulatory concerns. "There is a view around the table of the Governing Council and most likely the General Council as well that reserves have to be liquid, that reserves have to be secure, that they have to be safe, that they should not be plagued by the suspicion of money laundering or other criminal activities".

2024 Industry Review and Outlook by Cobo Team

Unraveling the Dramatic Rise of Stablecoin Payments Transforming into Mainstream Payment Titans, Unveiling the Vastly Untapped Potential of BTC Layer 2 Poised to Unleash a Trillion - Dollar Market, Analyzing the Drastic Shifting Exchange Landscape Marked by CEX's Decline and DEX's Ascent, Decoding the Continuously Evolving Security Threats that Demand Urgent Attention, and Exploring the Promising Integration of AI in the Crypto Space that's Set to Redefine the Future of Digital Finance

Read more

Crypto exchange Kraken announced that it will reopen its on-chain staking service to users in 39 states in the United States, supporting 17 assets including ETH, SOL, DOT, ADA, etc. Previously, Kraken reached a settlement with the US SEC in February 2023, agreeing to terminate its staking service and pay a $30 million fine.

Ross Ulbricht, the founder of "Silk Road", or the operator of his wallet lost about $12 million due to a liquidity addition error in the Pumpfun token transaction on the Solana. His donation address received 50% of the supply of ROSS tokens and lost $10.5 million (35% of the supply) due to operational errors. Currently, Ross still holds 10% of the supply and has correctly added LP to the Raydium centralized liquidity pool.

Circle announced that USDC has been officially launched on the Move-based L1 blockchain Aptos mainnet, which can be accessed directly by users and developers without cross-chain bridging. Aptos will support CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) in the future. Coinbase also plans to support USDC on Aptos in the near future.

The ECB cut the deposit facility rate by 25BPs to 2.75%, in line with market expectations. This is the fourth consecutive meeting to cut interest rates by 25BPs. The ECB pointed out that it will return to its medium-term target of 2% within this year.

The US announced that the annualized quarterly rate of the core PCE price index in the fourth quarter was 2.5%, which was expected to be 2.5% and the previous value was 2.20%. The number of initial jobless claims in the US for the week ending January 25 was 207,000, which was expected to be 220,000 and the previous value was 223,000.

Grayscale officially launched the Bitcoin Mining ETF (MNRS) and listed it on the New York Stock Exchange Arca, providing investment exposure to global Bitcoin mining companies. Its top ten holdings include major mining companies such as Marathon Holdings (16.66%), Riot Platforms (11.92%) and Core Scientific (9.2%).

In an informal on-chain vote, Ethereum community members nominated former Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan as the next leader of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) with 99% support. The vote was initiated by "votedannyryancom" and a total of 296 wallets participated, holding a total of more than 50,000 ETH, worth about $160 million.

El Salvador's Congress has quickly approved legislation to amend its Bitcoin laws to comply with an agreement with the IMF to adjust its cryptocurrency exposure. The IMF asked the Bukele government to reduce its involvement in Bitcoin and make Bitcoin optional and voluntary for private sector merchants.

Frank Richard Ahlgren III, a Texas resident, was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay $1,095,031 in restitution for tax crimes in the sale of $4 million worth of Bitcoin. This is the first purely cryptocurrency-related tax fraud case in the United States. Ahlgren moved Bitcoin through multiple wallets, conducted face-to-face peer-to-peer transactions, and used mixers such as CoinJoin and Wasabi Wallet to hide the flow of funds.

A Chinese court ruled that the future trading of a cryptocurrency exchange was gambling, and external promoters and employees were convicted of being accomplices in the crime of opening a casino, but in the end they were basically sentenced to suspended sentences.